Definitions

In "hard" subjects, such as the
sciences, terms are usually defined stipulatively, i.e. they
have formal technical definitions which have to be learned. In "softer"
disciplines, the terminology is often used in everyday conversation, and so there is a problem
about what it actually means in different discourses. Dictionary definitions—so beloved of students—do
not tell you what people mean by the terms in practice. This exercise is about helping to
tease out those issues.

Example:

Who is
Ill?

The category "illness" is
vague. It means different things to different people in different circumstances. This is
an attempt to tease out the meanings surrounding the word "illness".

Rate each of the conditions below not according to
severity of the illness, but on how clearly the person fits into your notion of
"illness".

Definitely
not ill

Definitely
ill

1

A person with a
peptic ulcer brought on by stress at work

1

2

3

4

5

2

A pregnant woman

1

2

3

4

5

3

Someone still
grief-stricken six months after death of partner

1

2

3

4

5

4

Premier League
footballer with pulled muscle

1

2

3

4

5

5

Pensioner who
frequently forgets to light the gas after turning it on

1

2

3

4

5

6

90-year-old
person with failing eyesight

1

2

3

4

5

7

An alcoholic

1

2

3

4

5

8

Someone with
genital herpes

1

2

3

4

5

9

A 45-year-old
woman who, if she steps on the cracks in the pavement has to go back to the last lamp-post
and start again

1

2

3

4

5

10

Someone with a
headache, runny nose and aching joints

1

2

3

4

5

11

Someone who
claims never to have felt better but is as high as a kite, not having taken anything

1

2

3

4

5

12

A diabetic

1

2

3

4

5

13

Someone who is
grossly over-weight

1

2

3

4

5

14

Someone who will
not switch on the TV set for fear of the little green monsters who come out of it

1

2

3

4

5

15

A medallist in
the Paralympics

1

2

3

4

5

16

Someone who is
HIV+

1

2

3

4

5

Add up your total score _______

Method

The items are chosen to illustrate the notion of
"illness": some of them are fairly clear-cut, whereas others are debatable or
fringe instances. In the exercise above, the particular focus was on mental illness, hence
items 3, 9 and 11.

Students are instructed as on the rubric above.

For processing, it is useful to have a version of the
questionnaire on an OHT (or you can write it on a flipchart while the students are filling
in the questionnaire; it's not easy to do via a computer, pace smartboards). This version should have three columns on the right, as below:

Then get the student next to her to add his score
to the number she called out, and to call out the result

The next student adds on her score to the second student's,
and so on round the class. (It is usually a little faltering for the first item or so,
with various jokes about not being able to do mental arithmetic, but soon picks up speed. If you know that some students will really have problems with the addition, you may of course choose to do it yourself, perhaps with the aid of a calculator.)

As tutor, you need to listen carefully for the range
of scores being called out (or you could nominate the first person in the circle to note this—she will have done with her duties almost at once.) The table above shows how you enter up the results. The score is the figure called out by the last student. The range respresents the
highest and lowest rating given to that item. When all the scores are in, you can work out
the rank ordering, from the item which gets the highest score (most
clearly an example of "illness", in this case) to that with the lowest (most
clearly is not illness).

Having done that, you can then lead a discussion:

Look at the extremes of the ranking, or at those items with
the full range of rating (1–5), and ask students—particularly those who awarded 5 or 1—what factors led them to give a high
or low rating to that item.

Use this as a means of unpacking the ideas contained within
the notion of "illness", and note them on the whiteboard, such as
"disability", "pain", "not self-inflicted", or whatever
emerges.

(In the "illness" example given, there is also an
option for individual students to add up all their ratings. In this case, but not with
other concepts, this yields some kind of score of how "medicalised" is the
student's view of problems. It can be compared with others in the group if you wish.)

Another example

(This is the teacher's scoring sheet version)

Is it Education?

Total

Range

Rank

1

Toilet training a
toddler

2

Learning how to
program your VCR

3

Being fascinated
by exhibits in a museum

4

Watching a
Shakespeare play live

5

Watching
"University Challenge"

6

Attending a rock
concert

7

Attending a
classical concert

8

Listening to
recorded pop music

9

Learning
irregular verbs in a foreign language

10

Learning how to
eat oysters

11

Cooking a new
dish

12

Experiencing
bereavement

13

A lecture on the
staff appraisal scheme

14

Looking up the
winner of the 1972 FA Cup Final

15

A TV documentary
on the political situation in Burma

16

Reading Inland
Revenue advice on self-assessment

17

A social argument
about religion

18

Reading Jane
Austen for pleasure

19

Being initiated
into a cult

20

This session!

Embedded in the items are issues about culture,
learning, "seriousness", and so on

What's behind this?

I had been using exercises like this for ten years or more before I realised they had some theoretical justification. And that is the way of things. In teaching, theory seeks to account for the success (or failure) of practice. Very rarely does it explicitly lead and suggest practice (at least, in the real world, as opposed to policy initiatives). But that is not to say theory is useless. It is after all usually derived from distilled practice. It can provide a bare-bones account of how something
is working and hence show how some specific approach or exercise can be ported from one subject area to another, or developed further to concentrate on a particular aspect of learning...

First, there is Bruner's distinction between the "enactive" (real-life), "iconic" (stories about real-life) and "symbolic" levels of knowledge. Move "down" to the enactive for detail, richness and specificity. Move "up" for the critical components and generalisable principles.

And then there is Perkins' exploration of how we form concepts from identifying the differences or variations in specific instances.

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